Telephony systems allowing voice communications between remote communicants have been available for many years. Communication systems that provide video capabilities to the communicants have also been developed. For example, there are a number of known systems that allow voice and video data to be transmitted using conventional telephone communication systems. With the development of high-speed Internet connections, video communication systems using Internet protocol (IP) communication channels have also been developed.
Systems allowing video and audio data to be transmitted across conventional telephone lines require that the communication end points each have compatible video and telephone devices. In addition, the Private Branch Exchange (PBX) or Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and office switches used for such communications must be upgraded, as compared to conventional audio only switches, in order to handle the combined video and audio data streams.
For video telephones that make use of the internet as the communication network rather than the public switched telephone network, these video telephones also require the end points to have compatible equipment. Typically, video communications using the Internet make use of a personal computer as the device with the requisite microprocessor capability to handle the video stream. Callers in this type of system require the Internet address or IP address of the endpoint(s) being contacted.
More recently, the most popular systems for video conferencing utilize an IP type connection for transmitting integrated audio and video, but allow such connections to be established using a telephone number. According to such systems, a user can initiate audio-video communications by dialing the telephone number associated with an endpoint having integrated video telephony capabilities. However, these communications also require especially equipped communication servers to handle the combined audio and video communications. Video conferencing techniques have advanced to a point where video conferencing today is a very common way to provide communications between remote parties.
For those video conferencing communications that take place between only two parties, there is rarely a concern or question regarding which person is speaking at that moment, since there are only two parties to the conversation. However, with respect to a shared video resource where there are a number of participants present at a particular location, it becomes very difficult to distinguish as to the identity of the party speaking at a particular time, and to directly associate a video image to the person who is speaking. The video that is generated at a shared video resource may only provide a single view of the room in which the participants are located, and such a view therefore does not allow for any type of video emphasis for any of the participants. Particularly with respect to formal communications that may take place between two organizations where there are a number of participants located at the video resource of each communication end point, video conferencing can sometimes present confusion since multiple remote parties speaking at or near the same times makes it difficult to closely follow the course of the conversation.
Some efforts have been made to identify a conference participant, especially in cases where not all of the conference participants are known to each other, or in cases where it may be difficult to understand what a participant is saying. One example of a prior art reference that discloses a system and method for indicating the identity of a speaker during a conference includes the International Publication No. WO2005/018,190. The invention disclosed in this reference utilizes speech recognition, speech to text, and text to speech applications for distinguishing between participants of the conference. However, one disadvantage of using speech recognition is that data samples of each of the conference participants must be taken prior to the conference in order to match each participant's voice with the stored data sample. Thus, for personnel who attend conferences such as guests or other unexpected parties, there is no way to identify those individuals since no prior voice sample is available.
Another reference that discloses a system that can be used to distinguish participants in a videoconference includes the International Publication No. WO2004/029,885. This system uses video image recognition for obtaining personal information related to a target person. An image acquisition device is used for capturing a video image of the target person. A database is created of stored image data items each relating to one of a plurality of candidate persons. Each image data item is associated with stored personal data relating to respective candidate persons. A search engine is used to then match the captured image of the target person to candidate person image data, and the personal data relating thereto is retrieved. A display device such as a video monitor displays the personal data matching the target person. Each candidate person has the ability to control third party access to the stored personal data relating to the candidate person. As with the speech recognition discussed above, the image acquisition device of this invention requires that certain data be stored about a conference participant prior to the conference, and in the event that a guest is present at a conference, it is extremely unlikely that any data will be available about the guest; therefore, no identification can be made of the identity of the guest.
Therefore, there is a need to provide a system and method for identifying conference participants wherein identification can be achieved at a minimum cost and without substantially adding to system software and hardware requirements.
Additionally, there is a need to provide such identification capability with respect to all conference participants whether the participants are planned attendees or whether the conference participants are unscheduled, and have done nothing more than perhaps sign in at the location where the conference is to be conducted.
Furthermore, there is a need to provide an acceptable level of personal privacy for conference participants wherein only authorized information is released regarding any conference participant.